Bring Your Own Politics: Life Strategies and Mobilization in Response to Urban Redevelopment

This article contributes to social movement literature and theories of strategic action by making the case for an analytic distinction between habitual and intentional life strategies, namely the ways in which people pursue what they value in life. Housing strategies are one example of life strategies. The distinction helps explain how political players, including social movements, bring about social change (or preserve the status quo) by changing or reinforcing people’s minds and their preferred ways of action. They can achieve their goals by first recognizing these habitual strategies, and then prompting people to articulate or adjust them during interactive, group-level situations. My analysis relies on a qualitative study of Renovation, a controversial urban renewal project in Moscow. I examine how Muscovites revisited, articulated and sometimes revised their housing strategies in response to the surprising, and for some, shocking announcement of the relocation project.

Neighborhood micro-renewal: a perspective of gene in China

PurposeImprovement of the environment quality and human development has become the main focus of modern urban development. Micro-renewal is a relatively people-oriented model of urban transformation compared with traditional renewal modes. To improve the theoretical system of neighborhood micro-renewal from a microcosmic perspective, a comprehensive analysis of neighborhood residents' cognition is needed. The purpose of the study is to explore the possibilities and methods of applying gene theory into the study of neighborhood micro-renewal.Design/methodology/approachAccording to the meme theory, the research explores the genetic analysis of neighborhood micro-renewal. The cross-over studies with “gene theory” from natural science to social science are analyzed and the neighborhood micro-renewal system was constructed from the perspective of micro-participants and micro-objects. Moreover, the concept of neighborhood “micro-renewal gene” was put forward. Finally, the authors show three application scenarios of public participation with a specific neighborhood micro-renewal project.FindingsThe cross research on urban studies with gene theory could be divided into three scales and four research fields. The characteristics of carrying out neighborhood micro-renewal in China could be summarized as micro-participants and micro-objects. Residents' cognition could be considered as “micro-renewal gene” in refer to meme theory. The application scenarios of introducing “micro-renewal gene” into the study of neighborhood renewal are of great potentialities.Originality/valueNeighborhood micro-renewal system was constructed from the perspective of micro-participants and micro-objects. Moreover, neighborhood “micro-renewal gene” was proposed and applied into the study of this system in refer to meme theory.

Visibility Model of Tangible Heritage. Visualization of the Urban Heritage Environment with Spatial Analysis Methods

The methodological approach of the study proposes an innovative yet adaptive way to define and preserve heritage sites and their elements. In the case study, the proposed methodology guides the design/planning research of heritage sites by linking the perceptual behaviour with the information of the built environment. Visibility is the tool to measure the level of exposure of specific urban elements from a particular perspective. While isovist analyses define visibility in the built environment, fields of view from the periphery of heritage sites are applied to calculate visible or invisible areas by the observer. The purpose of the current study is the evaluation of the identification of the elements to be protected, by modelling both the heritage environment and the heritage elements according to the visibility criteria. For this purpose, I illustrate my approach by using visibility analyses and Space syntax analysis in the case of the Sulukule neighbourhood, the leading renewal project, in Istanbul. This area used to have notably cultural–historical assets–historic land walls, the lifestyle of Roma people—but now the renovation works carried out in the Sulukule case study site have affected the identity of the “visible” and “known” space of the historic quarter.

Residents’ Perception of a Collaborative Approach with Artists in Culture-Led Urban Regeneration: A Case Study of the Changdong Art Village in Changwon City in Korea

This study asserts that the higher the degree of artists’ and residents’ participation in a culture-led renewal project, the higher the level of residents’ satisfaction. Engaging artist groups and introducing cultural programs can facilitate building a collaborative network between artists and residents. This paper adopts an experimental study method and defines the experimental and control groups as follows: the experimental group (Changwon city) has relatively high artist participation, and the control group (Sacheon, Gimhae, Miryang cities) have relatively low artist involvement. Multiple regression analysis was conducted utilizing 192 valid survey data in R studio software. The significant variables were compared between the experimental group (Model 1) and the control group (Model 2). As a result, the relative effects of “1. experience (or amount) of residents’ participation in urban renewal programs”, “2. reflection of residents’ opinions”, and “3. neighborly trust” on “residents’ satisfaction with urban regeneration projects and expected outcomes” was shown to be greater in the experimental group. The result implies that the involvement of cultural entities and the operation of arts programs increase residents’ will to participate in renewal projects and to build neighborly trust. Further, collection and reflection of residents’ opinions about the renewal works were more smoothly completed when mediated by artist participation and using cultural content.

Relocation Scheduling in a Two–Machine Flow Shop with Resource Recycling Operations

This paper considers a variant of the relocation problem, which is formulated from an urban renewal project. There is a set of jobs to be processed in a two-machine flow shop subject to a given initial resource level. Each job consumes some units of the resource to start its processing on machine 1 and will return some amount of the resource when it is completed on machine 2. The amount of resource released by a job is not necessarily equal to the amount of resource acquired by the job for starting the process. Subject to the resource constraint, the problem is to find a feasible schedule whose makespan is minimum. In this paper, we first prove the NP-hardness of two special cases. Two heuristic algorithms with different processing characteristics, permutation and non-permutation, are designed to construct feasible schedules. Ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms are also proposed to produce approximate solutions. We design and conduct computational experiments to appraise the performances of the proposed algorithms.

People, Place & Landscape : A Bottom-Up, Adaptive, Catalytic Approach to Tower Renewal

The process of improving poor, declining urban neighbourhoods is essential for the health and well-being of individuals as well as the prosperity of cities and nations. Despite the clear practical and ideological reasons for doing this, throughout history, governments and planners have struggled to find workable solutions. Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that in order to achieve equitable, substantive and sustainable improvements in poor urban neighbourhoods, the solutions must be layered and account for the interrelatedness of social, economic, and physical realms. Given the complexity of this process, this research suggests that bottom-up, adaptive and catalytic approaches to urban renewal can help planners to achieve substantive and sustainable change. Further, as contemporary urban theory suggests, the notions of landscape and place are uniquely well-suited mediums for supporting and producing change in a complex world. The Mayor's Tower Renewal Project in the City of Toronto, is an urban renewal initiative that demonstrates both the importance and complexity of urban renewal. As such, it provides an opportunity to understand how bottom-up, adaptive, and catalytic approaches which engage the urban landscape can result in significant improvements to the conditions of a declining urban area. Based on this analysis this research paper offers a new lens for thinking about and reacting to the process of urban revitalization in a way that produces equitable, long-lasting and meaningful change.